Putting Illegal Alien Hiring Executives On Trial

“Two executives at a company that once helped build a fence to keep illegal immigrants from crossing the Mexican border were sentenced Wednesday to six months of home confinement for hiring undocumented workers.

Mel Kay, founder, chairman and president of Golden State Fence Co., and manager Michael McLaughlin had pleaded guilty in federal court to knowingly hiring illegal aliens. U.S. District Judge Barry Ted Moskowitz ordered each to serve 1,040 hours of community service and spend three years on probation.

Kay, 64, was fined $200,000 as part of a plea agreement, and McLaughlin agreed to pay $100,000.

Federal prosecutors took the rare step of seeking prison time after the men acknowledged hiring at least 10 illegal immigrants in 2004 and 2005. The charges carried a maximum possible penalty of five years in prison.

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However, prosecutors were unable to find a previous case in which an employer had been sent to jail for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants.

…In December, company officials acknowledged knowingly hiring illegal immigrants and agreed the firm would pay a $4.7 million fine, one of the largest for immigration violations.

…Kay apologized before he was sentenced and described how his business suffered after the guilty pleas. Golden State was banned from government work, which accounts for 30 percent of its revenue. The company has laid off about 150 employees, leaving it with about 500 workers.

“I feel I have paid a tremendous price,” Kay said. “I’ve lost a lot of accounts. (Customers) don’t want to be guilty by association.”

If both of those execs had gotten five years in prison each, it would have undoubtedly scared a lot of other business owners straight. Yes, they might be willing to risk a fine to hire illegals, but no way most execs are going to risk prison to save a few bucks by hiring illegals — and that’s why, in the end, going after people like McLaughlin and Kay is the key to solving the illegal immigration problem.

You go after the executives hard and most of them won’t hire illegals. If businesses won’t hire illegals, then most of them will go home and tell their friends not to bother with going to America because they won’t be able to get jobs. So, once the job magnet is taken out of commission, the biggest part of the problem will be fixed. That’s why prosecutions like this one should be so commonplace that they don’t even merit being written about. If we ever get to that point, the illegal immigrant problem will be almost solved.